During most surgical procedures blood and other body fluids are released. Additionally, most procedures require some irrigation, resulting in additional fluid in the area of the incision. Many times it is impractical to collect and control this fluid using suction, and therefore the fluid is permitted to seep into the area surrounding the incision or location where the procedure produces a fluid flow. Surgical drapes comprising a sheet of flexible material having a fenestration and a spaced apart region for collecting the fluids and materials emanating from the patient during the surgical procedure are well known. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,462,396--Wichman discloses a drape having a flexible pocket secured to top surface of a drape. A fitting attached to the pocket permits a tube to be utilized to drain the pocket of the fluids collected. Similarly, U.S. Pat. No. 4,559,937--Vinson and U.S. Pat. No. 4,598,458--McAllester disclose surgical drapes having fluid collection bags spaced at a location whereby the fluid will flow by gravity and be collected and stored.
Although fluid collection and control is important in most surgical procedures, many gynecological and obstetric procedures pose particularly difficult problems. In the past, others have attempted to provide fluid collection means particularly adapted to collecting these such fluid flows. A surgical drape for cystoscopic procedures having a fenestration and a folded pocket located in the path of the fluid runoff is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,414,968--Amin. Although using apparatus separate from the surgical drape itself, a method of collecting postpartum fluid is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,105,019--Haswell. The method disclosed utilizes a sheet-like receptacle having two pockets one for collecting amniotic fluid and one for collecting blood. A fluid collection apron for use during transurethral resection is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,007,741--Waldrop, et al. The apron is attached to the urological operating table and to the surgeon's neck. The apron collects fluid and drains it through a tube into a remote collection receptacle.
In addition to the specific examples discussed above, it is also well known within the art to design surgical drapes and the like to be particularly adapted to operations performed on certain body portions, and indeed, adapted to specific procedures. For example, in the case of the ear, specific drainage devices for collecting fluid and channeling the fluid to a remote receptacle have been disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,036,235--Hathaway and U.S. Pat. No. 4,201,212--Bradley. Both designs rely upon the patient being in an upright position, providing a fenestration disposed above a fluid collection pouch, thereby providing a gravity flow generally the patient into the collection pouch.
One disadvantage to the methods and apparatus disclosed immediately above is that the fluid collection pouch is spaced or disposed on the patient in a manner which relies on patient orientation to provide a gravity flow in a particular direction. Thus, if the patient were to shift or if the surgeon required the patient to be reoriented, it would also be necessary to re-orient the drape and fluid collection apparatus to some extent. A solution to this problem is provided by U.S. Pat. No. 3,650,267--Anderson, which discloses a surgical drape having a fluid collection means surrounding the area adjacent to the fenestration. The apparatus disclosed consists of a very thin flexible bag having a fenestration formed in its bottom and preferably having a rim of elastic or other material sewn to the upper portion which forms an open end. In certain embodiments a tubular drain is integrated into the fluid collector. On problem with such a device, however, is that the edges of the bag tend to become matted down during the procedure, resulting in fluid spillage.
It therefore would be desireable to provide a fluid collection device which could be readily integrated into a variety of drapes and adapted to a variety of procedures. Such a drape would preferably collect fluids and other materials from the entire periphery of an incision wound or fluid source and would not rely substantially upon the exact orientation of the patient.